Curious what resident rabbit food-lover Thom Yorke likes to eat? Here's an attempt at collating his dietary history, and his odd likes/dislikes...
(Radiohead's Tour Rider, 1992)
In the beer garden of a nearby pub, the rest of the band chatter gaily while Thom stares stonily into his mineral water. After fifteen minutes he leaves. Hmm.
Sitting slumped across a dinner table in the hotel bar, Mr Yorke hardly looks like a singer about to embark on the biggest European tour of his life. He's in the mood for moaning and no one, not the band and certainly not some journalist, is going to persuade him otherwise. "Do I have to?" he wails, taking another sip from his bottle of not very rock 'n' roll mineral water.
With Thom's head in such a whirl it comes as no surprise to him that he should find himself eating mud masquerading as pasta in an Italian restaurant in the heart of Spain. He was doing the same thing in reverse in Rome yesterday.
[...]
As Thom swaps his plate of brownish green pasta for a melted cheese and tomato butty optimistically described on the menu as pizza, he excitedly discusses the direction he'd like Radiohead to take next.
Colin and I got into cooking. But all the things we cooked had to have pesto in. Colin always referred to it as the 'pesto slop'. It would taste great, though. You know, idiot food. But a month after I moved out I ate some pesto and started feeling really sick. I haven't eaten it since.
(B-Side #51, July/August 1995)
"I would prefer that to some scary groupies,' murmurs Thom. "There's always this feeling that you're somehow this extension of the Coca-Cola thing, like on MTV: you're always proceeded by Coca-Cola."
"Or sponsored by them,' frets Jonny.
"Yeah, you turn up at some gigs, and what was that one that was sponsored by Pepsi... oh fuck," hisses Thom. "I don't even drink the stuff..."
(Radiohead World Service #2, October 1995)
Diet coke for breakfast.
They talk for a few moments, then Yorke's girlfriend ambles off into the crowd. Yorke walks into catering, looks blankly at the food then returns to his dressing room. He sits briefly then drifts away yet again, unable to sit still for more than a minute...
[...]
Then he's off wandering again; amiable, chatting, snatching food where he can. All the time he's smiling, content that he performed well, pleased that tonight's gig was so good.
Interviewer: But you were back in Oxford in January, right? Are you telling me you didn't eat one hamburger?
Thom: I don't eat meat. I haven't eaten meat for five years.
(Mon souper avec Radiohead, April 1996)
(Addicted to Noise, June 1996)
ATN: What are your feelings on vegetarianism?
Thom: I think we were right, and the rest of the world's wrong. (referring to the Mad Cow disease.) Yeah...we were right...nah, nah, nah..so there.
Jonny: I find it increasingly hard to do, because you discover with horror that your favorite chocolate sweets have gelatin in them..
Thom: And cheese, when they put the rennet in...that's the most disgusting thing imaginable! I think basically, that it's the responsibility of the supermarkets to fucking get themselves sorted out, you know. Because basically people rely on supermarket chains and they're really the ones that should be endorsing vegetarianism. Cos if they don't, then it'll never happen, you know.
(Radiohead World Service #4, early 1997)
He was not as nervous as was rumoured. He is rather masculine in character, though he is a strict vegetarian who doesn't eat even fish. Besides, he is kind-hearted and dependable.
"This house was the total opposite," Yorke says with a muted intensity that doesn't at all jibe with the 28-year-old's spitfire stage presence. Tucked into a Naugahyde booth, sipping chamomile tea and a glass of carrot juice, Yorke exhibits body language that suggests intense caginess, as if he's not quite comfortable in his own skin.
With some difficulty, tour manager Tim Greaves had acquired canteen meal-tickets for the band, but the food was a digestion-challenging mix of polystyrene burgers and the kind of salad probably best suited to mopping up oil in your garage. Jonny Greenwood gazed down sceptically at his plate. Yorke, nursing a hangover, propped his head on his fist and glowered.
Back at the band's hotel, Yorke readies himself for the interview with strong coffee (he scorns decaf) and chooses a table in the natural light of the glass-roofed restaurant. He settles himself.
(Rolling Stone #771, October 16th 1997)
As he takes his seat, Yorke grabs a friend's jet-fuelled margarita and exclaims "What...is...this?" He takes a sip. "Yeow", the scrawny singer yells, shaking his head. "I think I'll be having one of those".
[...]
Yorke settles into a chair, accepts a glass of champagne and orders french fries and a salad.
Down the corridor, at one of the trestle tables that form the eating area, Thom Yorke has a breakfast of grapefruit and cereal, while Luscious Jackson's 'Fever In, Fever Out' album plays in the kitchen, and the band's caterers work on the kind of earthy buffet lunch that cannot help but provide a comforting kind of solace (an impression only furthered by the permanent presence of a jar of Marmite).
(San Francisco Chronicle, June 24th 2001)
Q: Are you a picky eater?
A: (Another lifestyle question? Along the lines of what makeup do I use and how do I spend my spare time?) I am vegetarian. Which means in France I want to be sick all the time. In Germany and Portugal I hardly eat at all until I leave. But when I am hungry I get very desperate. I draw the line at cheese in a can, however. Days and days traveling in the United States living on tortilla chips and salsa can also take its toll.
(The New Yorker, August 20th 2001)
On the other side of the table, Yorke, whose meal consisted of a bowl of bean soup, started complaining about pop-music conglomerates.
(Follow Me Around fan-doc, 2002)
"Yorke was drinking black coffee from a half-plunged cafetiere and glancing at the headlines of that morning's Guardian."
[...]
"Well I keep cutting out those Red Cross ads, so I guess I'll do that. But fucking hell, the Americans should be forking out for that!" This was a rare flash of contentiousness and when the two of us sat down for lunch at a Thai restaurant just off the High Street, Yorke's remarks about the very meat of Hail To The Thief were as vegetarian as his Pak Krua noodles.
(Time Out (New York), June 5th 2003)
If the music from Hail to the Thief is any indication, the band is fitter and happier than it has been in years “With this record, I was just letting it happen – for the first time,” Yorke says in his Dublin hotel, munching on a seriously hodgepodge vegetarian dinner of french fries, steamed vegetables and a leafy salad.
I'm sitting with Yorke in the restaurant of an Oxford, England, hotel called The Old Parsonage. He was 20 minutes late for our interview, explaining that he had to run home and do some yoga because he was “feeling a bit weird.” He's studying the restaurant menu and complaining that he's running out of things he can eat – not only is he a vegetarian, but he's stopped eating anything made with wheat (for the past six months, he's had a skin rash, and he thinks wheat is the culprit). Eventually he settles on roasted tomatoes and buffer beans, a meal he calls “expensive” (it costs about $17).
[...]
“Having a son has made me very concerned about the future and about how things in the world are being steered, supposedly in my name,” he says between sips of mineral water.
Yorke himself seems unerringly bullish throughout the three days Mojo has spent with him. This is something he attributes to his diet - although, later, some more deep-rooted reasons surface. He's been wheat-free for the last two years and, as a result, feels sufficiently energised to make it through the longest of days.
YORKE AND BLENDER have moved next door to the Edinburgh party, to a quiet, neat dressing room. As he nibbles on rabbit food — he’s a vegetarian and has recently given up wheat and dairy products — Yorke talks of what eats at him.
(BBC Radio 1 'Mark & Lard', November 21st 2003)
Mark: "Fish and chips and beans for Ed O'Brien, and what have you got there, Thom?
Lard: "Bit of mash? Carrots?
Thom: "Mash, carrots, and something called Quorn........
Ed: "Chilli
Mark: "Is that it? Quorn chilli, right, the vegetarian dish of the day, so anyway, Thom and Ed are here, and we will be talking to them once there's......
(Dead Air Space, 23 August 2005)
everybodys wasted. expended i mean. energy wise i mean.
all in need of bowl of coco pops.
(Dead Air Space, 2006)
(Dead Air Space, 20 November 2006)
supermarket demand for fish ( not that i eat fish or meat ) has meant we
are fishing to extinction . what i find particularly offensive are the
enormous nets they use that drag everything up and well.... just have a
read. supermarkets should be made to source their fish responsibly and
governments should act in the intersest of our future to regulate for
sustainable fishing. not this mass production/destruction shit. i
respect peoples right to eat fish. but evertime i watch the guys in the
band sitting down to their whatever it is with scales i quietly wonder
how its arrived. and what was destroyed and killed or thrown away to get
it....
(BBC Radio 1 'Zane Lowe', November 20th 2007)
Zane: Thom, are you a "cheese man"?
Thom: I have to, I'm a vegetarian so I live on Cheese.
Zane: You do! And your favorite cheese is?
Thom: Um...Gorgonzola.
Zane: Gorgonzola 's a good sharp...
Thom: Like nice, you know, the drippy ones...
Zane: Yeah!
Thom: that drip out of the packet?
Ed: No, man.
Zane: You're a "cheddar man", you can get on with a little mature cheddar?
Thom: Actually, yeah, I mean, cheddar with everything.
Zane: Cheddar! I mean, people who say that cheddar isn't their favorite cheese are really pushing the boat out, I think. Because it's so adaptable.
Thom: But only if it's, you know, extra mature.
Zane: It's GOT to be extra mature, Mild I just think is a waste of time.
Thom: Yeah, well, the kids have Mild, and I just can't do it.
(Rolling Stone #1155, April 26th 2012)
Later that day, Radiohead convene with Edge and Hufford to discuss touring in 2012. Afterward, O'Brien describes the meeting as "fraught." Yorke already sounds uneasy over his egg-white omelet: "The level of machinery freaks me out sometimes. You walk backstage, and there's people and stuff everywhere.
Thom: If you're going to be a vegetarian, you really do have to like lentils. Otherwise you're fucked.
(Teresa Carles' FB post, April 18th 2013; *translated from Spanish)
Thom Yorke, who almost all of you will know as the lead singer of Radiohead, visited Razzmatazz yesterday and conquered Barcelona with his latest super project: Atoms For Peace.
Before his performance, we had the honor of having him visit the restaurant and taste Teresa Carles' specialties!!! Among his favorites was the Tofu and Avocado Tartar ;-)
The cooks reveal Radiohead frontman Yorke "snacks" on sumac spiced aubergine and Lebanese salsa sliders before a gig, while his bandmates enjoy tucking in to partridge, quince and ginger gyoza.
(Rolling Stone, May 31st 2017)
At the moment, he’s sitting in Little Dom’s Italian restaurant in the Los Feliz neighborhood of his adopted hometown of Los Angeles, wearing a bleached denim jacket with the collar popped up, a thin white T-shirt and what appear to be leather pants. His long hair is pulled back into a tiny, tight bun; he has a stylish gray beard. Little Dom’s is one of his favorite spots – he was here the night before for dinner – but now it’s midafternoon, and the restaurant has opened early just for him. He orders an English breakfast tea, and later an espresso. In his hand is an iPhone with a sticker on the back that sums up his response to nearly every conceivable query: “Fuck what you heard.”
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